ARGH BLOODY HABITAT!!! (rant alert)

So Mrs Al and I were all excited as we got given Habitat vouchers for xmas as we want a new bed. Off we go, 26th December, down to store to order. Arrange delivery for yesterday, so I duly book a day of work and await delivery.

All is going well - get a phone call on Wednesday confirming delivery, and then the driver calls at 9am sharp (Thurs) saying he'll be with me between 1 and 3.

Then it went downhill. Phone call came in at 1, saying they'd broken down near Fish Hill/Evesham (only about 20 mins away). They weren't sure if they'd get the delivery out to us or not. I wasn't angry at this point, because these htings happen, and it's just bad luck. *Eventually* they managed to find a subcontractor who said they could be with us between 4:30 and 6 - great I thought, at least we still get a bed though!

Turn up at 5:50, start to unload and then say "ooh there's a problem here - we only seem to have 2 of 5 packages for your bed!".

Bugger.

As they're subbies, they won't take the two packages back, so I'm stuck with two bloody big and heavy bed parts, and no bed.

Tried phoning customer services this morning, and all I got was a recorded message saying "our opening hours are between 9:30 and 5:30" - bearing in mind this was still being relayed at 11:30, I'm not impressed. I eventually managed to get through to the head office switch board, only to be put through the the problematic custie services line, and when I phoned back again I had the following conversation:

(Reception) "Good Morning Habitat"
(Me) "Good morning, I spoke to you about 5 seconds ago about customer relations"
(R) "Ahh yes and I put you through to the customer services line"
(M) "Yup, you did, despite me saying it didn't work".
(R) "Would you like me to try again?"
(M) "No. Could you transfer me to someone who I can talk to about the next steps please?"
(R) "No, sorry, this is a no-name policy company".
(M) "In that case, could I ask you to get someone to phone me back please"
(R) "No, it's our customer relations team that do that - have you tried phoning them?"
(M) "YES! And you tried putting me through".
(R) "Have you emailed them"
(M) "yup - about 5 times since yesterday, and phoned them too".
(R) "Oh."
(M) "So what's going to happen?"
(R) "I could always email them for you..."
(M) "So I can email them, I can write to the customer services manager directly, I can recieve calls from them, but I can't talk to them if I initiate the calls because of your no-name policy?"
(R) "Yup"
(M) "So where do I go if your customer services line isn't working??"
(R) "Erm, would you like me to try to transfer you to customer services??"


ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I appreciate it's not her (the receptionists) fault, and I wasn't trying to blame her in any way shape or form, but the way she responded was ridiculous! I can't believe this "no-names" policy, I understand why they do it, but given that I can write, and email, the manager directly, why can't I speak to him?!

All I want is my bed :'(

This sounds very familiar! I had a similar problem with IKEA. These complanies seem to have it sewn up to be honest. They get another company to sort their deliveries and when that goes t*$s up your seriously screwed . The customer services systems are designed specifically to make you powerless. IKEA for instance will talk to you as much as you want, but they cannot sanction any action as that is supposed to be the job of their dispatch company. They promise to phone you back within 48 hours but rarely do, and if you chase them up then you go back to the 48 hour rule. It took me 3 months to get my money back and the legal assistance of trading standards. If you don't get this sorted out to your satifaction (not just promises) within 7 days, then my hard earned advice would be to call trading standards to log the complaint and get a ref number and then put it all in writing to Habitat setting out your problem and giving them 7 days to sort it out. If that doesn't help follow up with another letter reminding them and threaten to take them to the small claims court, if that doesn't sort it, then take them to court and claim ALL additional expenses. LOG ALL YOUR CALLS. Do not agree to deal direct with the distribution company as that is there problem not yours and under the sale of goods act they have a responsibility to YOU which should not be passed onto anybody else. Don't shout at them down the phone or they'll flag you as a problem as that'll just drag things out even more. Calm determination and send all letters registered post. Good Luck. These situations can be infuriating......